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11 jobs that need women ... and men

Women aren't staying around in the science and technology fields. The New Republic reported this week that female workers are leaving science, and many other industries, because of the way they view their careers.
- photo by Matej Kastelic, istockphoto.com

Herb Scribner

Deseret News

Updated:
Sept. 12, 2014, 8:28 a.m.

Men and women are both entering the workforce.

It’s just the areas they’re heading into are vastly different.

Though the job market has been mostly split in recent years, men are starting to outpace women in getting new jobs, according to USA Today. The jobs report unveiled on Sept. 1 found that women hold about 45 percent of all new jobs in the last 12 months, with unemployment numbers for men beginning to slow down, USA Today reported.

A lot of that can be attributed to the jobs that women and men are both taking and how these fields are changing and growing. Here’s a look at different professions that show a wide gap between male and female employees.

NEED WOMEN: Science and technology

Women aren’t staying around in the science and technology fields. The New Republic reported this week that female workers are leaving science, and many other industries, because of the way they view their careers.

“Female scientists, says psychologist Alysson Light, may be more inclined to sacrifice their careers for the sake of their partners’ because women tend to define themselves in terms of their relationships more than men do,” according to the New Republic.

This is part of an ongoing theme of workers leaving technology fields, like engineering.

In fact, the Labor Department reported that 98 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers are women, while 82 percent of elementary and middle school teachers are also female -- showing that there is in fact a gap between men and women when it comes to teaching.

More men are entering nursing fields, but there’s still a lot of room to expand. USA Today reported last year that the percentage of male nurses increased from 2.7 percent in 2011 to 9.6 percent in 2011, showing growth.

“A predicted shortage has led to recruiting and retraining efforts to increase the pool of nurses,” said Lianna Christin Landivar, author of the report cited by USA Today. “These efforts have included recruiting men into nursing.”

Still, there’s room for improvement. Of the near 3.5 million employed nurses, 91 percent of them are female, according to USA Today.

NEED MEN: Secretaries

In 2013, secretary was still rated as the top job for women, according to CNN Money. Of the 4 million who labeled themselves as secretaries at their jobs, 96 percent of them were female, CNN reported, which doesn’t seem like it will be changing anytime soon as technology becomes more prevalent and the demand for secretaries, now sometimes called “administrative assistants,” increases.

NEED WOMEN: Chefs

Sure, there are some female chefs, but not a lot of them are that famous. Fox News reported earlier this year that women have just 10 of the 160 head chef positions of the top restaurants across the country.

“Women get weeded out by an inherently difficult workplace that has long, family unfriendly serving hours, low starting wages and limited access to health insurance,” Fox News reported. “It’s also notoriously unpredictable: What’s hot today may be out tomorrow.”

“If they’re willing to put in the time and hard work, they shouldn’t be discouraged that this is a male-dominated world,” patrolman Hallie Miller told The Patriot-News. “They can do anything a man can do.”

NEED MEN: Waiter and waitresses

According to the Labor Department, there are more than 2.3 million restaurant waiters and waitresses in the United States. But men have made a climb back into this profession. As from the 1970s to the 1990s, there’s been a 13 percent drop between women and men in waiting tables, the Labor Department reported.

NEED WOMEN: Politics

Right now, 19 percent of the United States’ representatives are female. And while this may be part of a record number of American women serving in Congress, they still don’t accurately represent the nation’s gender balance. According to The Huffington Post, America is still about 50 percent female -- showing that women still have a lot of ground to make up in the political realm.

“I am frankly deeply saddened that we must find cause for celebration when fewer than one in five representatives, but approximately one out of two members of the population, are women,” wrote Jessica Levinson for The Huffington Post.

NEED BOTH: Parenting

According to The Christian Post, University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus conducted a study which found that kids function best when they are raised by their biological parents, or are adopted by a traditional married couple.

“One of the things we learned is that living in a stable mother-father household is fabulous. There’s no guarantee of this success in life, but I’m going to bet on those odds,” said Regnerus to the Christian Post.

Similarly, a study cited by Daily Mail found that families need dads, mostly because the discipline dads dish out keep kids in school and away from crime. Moms, too, are a necessity, according to Focus on the Family, which found that moms -- whether they work or stay at home -- teach kids to be more emotionally aware of situations and kinder to others.

Seems like there is plenty of room for both men and women in parenting.